The Soil Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SM CRSP) aims to elimi-
nate soil-related bottlenecks that stand in the way of sustainable development. It makes the crit-
ical assumption that perverse policies, slow rates of technology adoption and impediments to
acquisition and application of scientific knowledge continue to be bottlenecks to the develop-
ment process. In addition the SM CRSP concentrates on bottlenecks for which it has compara-
tive advantage in eliminating.
This advantage resides in the participating institutions' ready access to scientific knowledge,
technology inventories and their capacity to synthesize knowledge-based products that enable
users to make informed decisions about policy reform and technology adoption. In this way
users are allowed to exercise choice from a number options in the way bottlenecks are eliminat-
ed or circumvented. The collaborating host-countries add to this comparative advantage by
incorporating local knowledge into CRSP products, and by serving as potential customers whose
role is to evaluate knowledge products for accuracy and user acceptability. The knowledge-
based products developed by the Soil Management CRSP come in several forms. They can be
packaged as decision aids which provide alternative ways or trade-offs to overcome or circum-
vent bottlenecks (University of Florida, Montana State University, North Carolina State
University), as a diagnostic procedure to detect weak links that threaten the sustainability of a
green revolution cropping system (Cornell University), as prescriptions for policy makers and
farm households on effective ways to conserve land on densely populated steeplands and protect
downstream communities (Texas A&M University), and as a new formulation of an old product
that renders benefits of biological nitrogen fixation affordable to low income households
(NifTAL).A key characteristic of the knowledge-base products is their global applicability at the
local level. They apply globally because they are based on fundamental principles that transcend
political boundaries, and apply locally because local biophysical and socio-economic data are
used to analyze site and user-specific situations.
In short, the SM CRSP is endeavoring to transform traditional agriculture from trial-and-
error subsistence farming to knowledge-based enterprises. Traditional agriculture is not sustain-
able because it requires more land than in use now to produce more food for more people.
Knowledge-based agriculture on the other hand, offers hope that agricultural production can
keep pace with demand without expanding the current cultivated land area.
Trained people are also needed to implement knowledge-based agriculture. To this end the
SM CRSP offers host country students opportunities to participate in field research and earn
advanced degrees in agriculture from participating U.S. universities.

Introduction

This is the second annual report of the
restructured Soil Management collaborative
Research support Program (SM CRSP). Last
year's report contrasted the newly restruc-
tured CRSP with the old. The old CRSP was
primarily designed to generate new knowl-
edge and technologies related to soil manage-
ment. The restructured CRSP, on the other
hand, operates on the premise that a large
body of soil management knowledge already
exist, and makes the critical assumption that
the desired impact of soil management on
food security and sustainable land manage-
ment will occur only when there is wide-
spread adoption of existing soil knowledge
and technologies by farmers, extension
agents, agribusinesses, and policy makers.

The Technology Adoption
Bottleneck

The slow adoption of technology packages
constitutes a major problem in many develop-
ing countries for farmers and researchers
alike. The reasons for the delay in technology
adoption include the following:

1. Farmers' objectives often do not coincide
with those assumed by researchers and
extension personnel.

2. Farmers' risks involved in adopting a new
technology are not appreciated by
researchers.

3. Farmers experience management prob-
lems associated with new technology
which are not always anticipated by
researchers.

4. Farmers may be operating within a set of
constraints the extent of which is not fully
appreciated by researchers; for example,

There are many more reasons for the slow
adoption of technology, but the list illustrates
the multitude of factors farmers consider
when confronted with a decision to adopt or
reject a technology.

Participatory Approaches
to Technology Adoption

The development community has been
aware of this problem from the time of the
green revolution when technologies that per-
formed well in irrigated farms did not do so
under rain-fed agriculture. The sondeos and
rapid rural appraisals of the early years have
now been replaced by participatory methods
that involve farmers in problem identification
and project design and implementation. This
iterative, dynamic and self-correcting
approach when properly applied guarantees a
high adoption rate. But adoption only by
those involved in participatory experiments is
not sufficient. To be sufficient, there must be
widespread adoption of a technology by user
groups. The unanswered question for partici-
patory research is how to scale up to a nation-
al or regional level what was accomplished
with a few farm households. The scaling up
of technology adoption from households to
villages, villages to watersheds, watersheds to
provinces and from provinces to nations and
regions is essential for research to produce
desirable results. Donor fatigue which we
hear so much about is a symptom of donor
disappointment with trail-and-error research
on sustainable development.
What can this CRSP do to complement
the on-going global agricultural research and
make a difference where it counts? This
CRSP has by most standards a large budget,
but the amount is minuscule compared to the

annual global agricultural research budget of
3-4 billion dollars. The U.S. Department of
Agriculture alone will spend 1.8 billion dol-
lars on agricultural research this year.
To even have a chance to make a differ-
ence this CRSP must concentrate on what it
can do best on a few choice topics. The CRSP
has a mandate to concentrate on five such
topics.

CRSP Mandate

The restructured SM CRSP is mandated
to focus on five soils-related constraints iden-
tified by an independent panel of soil experts
as part of the restructuring process. The con-
straints are as follows:

4. Management of Water Deficiencies-
especially through better understanding of
the interactions between nutrients and
water use efficiencies.

5. Erosion and Land Degradation-especial-
ly as they relate to nutrient management.

Six projects are now engaged in collaborative
research with developing country partners to
address one or more constraints. Although
only four projects could be funded by the
allotted budget, the agency and management

entity chose to fund the fifth and sixth pro-
jects at a reduced level to enable them to seek
financial support from other sources. The
title, principal investigator and lead partici-
pating institution for each project are as fol-
lows:

2. Gender and soil fertility. Christina
Gladwin, University of Florida.

In the first year, six projects developed in iso-
lation from each other focused their individ-
ual activities on their own specific objectives.
The challenge was to find a way to concentrate
project activities on a common set of program
objectives. To do so the principal investigators

were asked to focus on the four properties of
sustainable agroecosystems, namely, produc-
tivity, stability, resiliency, and equitability.
These properties embedded in the program
objectives are as follows:

1. Increase productivity of agroecosystems
by raising yields and incomes of host
country and U.S. families.

2. Increase stability of agroecosystems by
reducing fluctuations in productivity by
factoring uncontrollable production vari-
ables such as weather and climate into
prescriptions for managing sustainable
agroproduction systems.

3. Increase resiliency of agroecosystems by
prescribing soil management practices and
policies that enable the system to recover
quickly from externally imposed stresses
and perturbations.

4. Increase equitability by enabling individu-
als within and between households to
share fairly in benefits derived from agroe-
cosystems.

After two years, the project now show
their strengths and weaknesses, and look for
inter-project collaboration to share strengths
with other projects. Common grounds for
such collaboration can be identified along the
lines of constraints (Figure 1), or program
objectives (Figure 2).
In Figure 1, for example, the nitrogen
constraint is covered by three institutions, but
for very different reasons. The University of
Florida is exploring ways to enable women
farmers to obtain and apply fertilizer to food
crops they produce, the NifTAL project is
developing a liquid inoculum for Rhizobium
that will reduce the cost of inoculum produc-
tion, and North Carolina State University is
developing a decision support system that
renders expert knowledge on nitrogen use
efficiency accessible to extension agents,
agribusinesses, farm consultants and NGOs.
These three projects have an opportunity to
share knowledge, and incorporate the best
into their own products.
Figure 1 also reveals that the water con-
straint is receiving token attention by the
CRSP even though water may be the limiting
constraint for raising productivity in rainfed

agriculture. This apparent neglect of water
stems from the belief by farmers and
researchers that rainfall is an act of God and
beyond human control. If we go to Figure 2,
we see limited involvement in the second
objective, to increase stability of agroecosys-
tem. By stability we mean the year to year
fluctuations in productivity caused by rainfall
variability. The combination of stability and
water supply represents the source of uncer-
tainty that renders technology adoption so
risky.

Two years ago, we could not have anticipated
the limited research activity in the water con-
straint and agroecosystem stability objective.
One way to correct this deficiency is to join
forces with agencies and organizations
involved in weather forecasting. In the U.S.,
companies and consultants market short-
range weather forecasting information to
farmers. Farmers, can then adjust their man-
agement strategies and operations to take full
advantage of the anticipated weather, includ-
ing rainfall. Recent work with El Nino shows
that in some regions weather conditions for
the next growing season can be reliably fore-
cast. With such forecasts, farmers can adjust
their management inputs to match the fore-
casted rainfall. In the absence of weather
forecasts, farmers' inputs are typically
matched for average rainfall. In highly vari-
able rainfall areas, dependence on averages to
determine fertilizer rates is too risky econom-
ically and environmentally. Use of average
rainfall results in excessive application in dry
years and insufficient application in wet years.
Weather forecasting, water supply and soil
management are high priority topics that this
CRSP can and should explore.

Comparative Advantage

This CRSP is aimed at eliminating soils-
related bottlenecks that delay sustainable agri-

cultural development for which it has a com-
parative advantage over other research
groups. It has identified policy reform at the
national and regional levels and technology
transfer and adoption at the farm and house-
hold levels as key bottlenecks. We also make
the critical assumption that the bottlenecks
continue to exist not because there is a short-
age of knowledge but because existing knowl-
edge is not effectively utilized by policy mak-
ers, agribusinesses and farm households.
In both developed and developing coun-
tries effective application of knowledge is
constrained by inaccessibility and the frag-
mented nature of knowledge.
The comparative advantage of the partici-
pating SM CRSP institutions is their easy
access relative to documented knowledge, and
therefore, the opportunity to synthesize
knowledge-based products that serve as deci-
sion support for policy reform, business
transactions and technology adoption.
For this CRSP, the knowledge products
come in several forms. They are packaged as
decision trees (University of Florida) or deci-
sion aids (North Carolina State University
and Montana State University) used to sup-
port decision making by policy maker,
agribusinesses and farmers; as a diagnostic
procedure for detecting weak links that
threaten the sustainability of a green revolu-
tion-based cropping system (Cornell
University); as prescriptions to enable farm
households occupying densely populated
steeplands and policymakers to save upstream
resources and protect downstream communi-
ties (Texas A&M); and as a new formulation
of an old product that renders the benefits of
biological nitrogen fixation affordable to low
income households (NifTAL).
But knowledge-based products, no matter
how powerful, serve no useful purpose if they
are rejected by their intended customers. For
this reason the role of the host-country col-
laborators is crucial. It is with these partners

that user participation and incorporation of
local knowledge take place. The comparative
advantage shifts from participating U.S. insti-
tutions to host country collaborators when
potential customers participate in the design
and evaluation of knowledge products.

Striving for a Locally Applicable
Global Plan

What makes a CRSP global is the global
dimension of the problems it addresses and
the global applicability of its products. To be
globally applicable, a knowledge-based prod-
uct must be based on fundamental, natural
processes that transcend political boundaries.
Processes involved in soil erosion or photo-
synthesis, for example, are the same every-
where. But if processes are global, the end
result is local and site-specific. Soil loss, for
example, depends on local rainfall, plant
cover and the length and steepness of slopes,
whereas photosynthesis and crop perfor-
mance depends on local water supply, nutri-
ent availability and weather that vary over
space and time.
This means that the inferencing capability
of knowledge-based tools can only be as good
as the site-specific data that fuels the infer-
ence engine. What is different today is that
such site-specific data can be georeferenced
and retrieved as many times as needed to
diagnose and prescribe alternative solutions
to problems. The power of information tech-
nology enables national agricultural research
and extension personnel to respond to cus-
tomer request for services in a timely and
cost-effective manner. Knowledge-based tools
do this by allowing customers to ask "what if"
questions. This capacity of information tech-
nologies to be interrogated by users ranging
from extension agents to government officials
dramatically changes the way knowledge is
made accessible to users. With the new infor-
mation technology customers specify which

knowledge is needed by asking "what if"
questions. In enabling customers to ask
"what if" questions, they are being offered
choices in how problems are solved.
Theodore Shultz, in his award winning book
"Transforming Traditional Agriculture"
encouraged the development community to
invest in research that enables framers to
exercise choice. Armatya Sen, this year, reiter-
ated Shultz's views on choice.
But choice implies the existence of
options from which to choose. If, for exam-
ple, a farm is rendered unproductive because
of nitrogen shortages, there are numerous
options from which the farmer can choose.
What if the farmer were to grow a nitrogen
fixing crop? What if she were to purchase
nitrogen fertilizer? What if the fertilizer were
entirely applied at planting time, split in three
applications, or broadcast on the surface or
buried below the surface. Not only must the
farmer know the options, but she must be
able to visualize the outcome of each option.
Prediction and visualization of outcomes are
the bases for choosing. Resource poor farm-
ers will most likely make choices on the basis
of economic benefits, whereas, farmers in
industrialized countries, criticized for harm-
ing the environment, may choose strategies
that are simultaneously profitable and ecolog-
ically sound.
In this way the global plan operates not
only on a site-specific, but on a customer-spe-
cific basis.

Summary:
The goal of this project is to integrate and
disseminate decision aid tools that will reduce
soil acidity, N and P nutrient limitations to
food production and quality. The tools will
facilitate the diagnosis of soil nutrient con-
straints and help the user to select appropri-
ate management practices for location-specif-
ic conditions.
The 5-year plan for project tasks are orga-
nized into two major categories: developmen-
tal research and outreach activities.
Developmental research includes tasks to do
the following:

* merge the single-constraint decision sup-
port systems (DSS) for acidity, N and P
into an integrated nutrient management
system (IntDSS);
* synthesize, analyze and assemble knowl-
edge required to overcome recognized
information gaps in the existing informa-
tion base for acidity, N and P;
* test and refine IntDSS; and
* develop auxiliary tools to facilitate use of
the integrated knowledge base by a variety
of users.

Outreach activities involve two major
types of collaborative effort: intensive testing
areas and an extensive evaluation network.
Intensive testing areas are a representative
region in each of three agroecological zones
(semi-arid, wet-dry and humid tropics) where
there is significant potential for tools devel-
oped by this project to alleviate soil acidity, N
and P management problems. These three
regions provide real life situations where all

developmental research by the multi-discipli-
nary team of 16 scientists from four U.S. uni-
versities (Cornell, Hawaii, N.C. State and
Texas A&M) is conducted jointly with nation-
al and international institute collaborators.
The extensive evaluation network focuses on
the evaluation of products under a variety of
user conditions, once suitable performance is
achieved at the intensive testing areas.
Although major efforts in product evaluation
will occur towards the end of the 5-year pro-
ject, early and continued contact with net-
work collaborators will help ensure global rel-
evance in product design and knowledge
assembly.
The targeted audience for IntDSS are agri-
culturalists in NARES, IARCS, NGOs, PVOs,
agribusiness and other CRSP projects.
Our comparative advantage towards
development and widespread distribution of
an integrated soil nutrient management deci-
sion support system lies in the project investi-
gators' (a) long-term participation and expe-
riences in international efforts to develop soil
nutrient management information, (b) suc-
cesses achieved among targeted users with
prior development of decision support sys-
tems for single-nutrient problems, and (c) an
extensive global network of collaborators will-
ing to contribute pertinent knowledge and
test IntDSS under a variety of location specif-
ic conditions.
During this second year of the project a
series of field, laboratory and greenhouse
investigations were implemented at intensive
testing sites in Costa Rica, Mali and Philippines
to acquire critical information related to soil
nutrient management. Seven project-spon-
sored travel events by U.S. team members
focused on visits to assist collaborators at test-
ing sites in development of experimental
designs, research protocols and to monitor
progress. Baseline surveys were completed for
each site, providing a detailed characteriza-
tion of socio-economic settings and decision-

making processes used by farmers in each
region. Comparisons of baseline data with
surveys in project years 3 and 5 will provide
measures of changes and impact assessment.
We expect that the IntDSS software, when
fully implemented, will help users increase
agricultural productivity, income, and, thus,
provide more options to limited-resource
farmers. An improved soil nutrient status and
management will enhance the natural
resource base by increasing choices of plant
materials to control erosion and minimizing
off-site nutrient transport.
Investigations on information gaps at test-
ing sites were complemented by continued
searches, analyses and interpretations of perti-
nent data in published and gray literature.
Estimates of Ca and Mg movement, for exam-
ple, highlighted the importance of under-
standing and predicting processes governing
soil bicarbonate and nitrate levels. Protocols
were developed for assembling and interpret-
ing existing available data on N response by
key crops to various sources of applied N.
Existing information on the diagnosis of P
deficiency/sufficiency in tree crops was evalu-
ated and, based on a comprehensive review,
methods were identified that merit further
development. During the year U.S. and over-
seas collaborators published or presented at
meetings 44 papers related to knowledge
assembly and information gaps in soil acidity,
N and P management.
Programming of the integrated nutrient
decision support system (IntDSS) continued
under the Delphi platform with the conver-
sion of ADSS and PDSS from other operat-
ing systems, and programming of the New
York-based NDSS to fit the management
needs of tropical regions. All single-thread
nutrient software conversions and develop-
ments were made to a fit a common interface
shell and database structure with Diagnostic,
Prediction and Guidance modules.
Compatibility with this common interface

structure will facilitate future planned revi-
sions of IntDSS software.
Activities with the external evaluation net-
work intensified this year with four project-
sponsored travel events and numerous con-
tacts via correspondence and email. Primary
contacts and specific interests were identified
for various network groups. Many of these
collaborators began to contribute to the pro-
ject by providing unpublished field research
data from their respective locations.

Summary:
A watershed planning unit internalizes the
costs and benefits of upland soil and water
conservation activities with the additional
benefits to downstream interests, thereby
influencing the scope and assessment of the
investment decisions. Simply put, investment
in steepland soil and water conservation is
much more attractive from an economic,
environmental and policy perspective if the
benefits to downstream interests are consid-
ered in addition to benefits to sustainable
production on the upland fields themselves.
Documenting these interrelationships can
help to build coalitions between upland and
downstream interests that have previously
been behaving as if they were environmentally
and socioeconomically disconnected.
Three countries, Honduras, Nicaragua,
Haiti, are the focus of our research activities.
Each was selected because of the contrasts
they provide in their environmental, econom-
ic, social and institutional characteristics.
Other factors influencing their selection were
(1) the logistic/cost benefits associated with

the close proximity, geographically, of these
countries relative to the U.S. (hence more
time and money can be spent on research
instead of travel) and (2) existing working
relationships between scientists at the lead
institution and at host country institutions
(hence start-up time was fast and the projects
can access data collected on some of the study
sites that were already operating).
The central hypothesis of this project is
that a watershed is an appropriate scale of
resolution for implementing a sustainable
steepland soil and water conservation pro-
gram. The drainage patterns of a watershed
form the framework of important energy and
nutrient cycles that occur on the landscape.
If planning does not occur at this level, activi-
ties on a smaller planning unit will be suscep-
tible to being undercut by events outside the
project control which disrupt these energy
and nutrient flow patterns. These flow pat-
terns also are central to the benefits and costs
of many types of socioeconomic decisions.

During PY-2, a Ph.D. dissertation and 6
scientific articles were published and 9
presentations were made at scientific
meetings or development workshops.
Over the 2 years of this project, 2 M.S.
theses, 1 Ph.D. dissertation, and 9 scientif-
ic articles have been published and 14 pre-
sentations have been made at scientific
meetings or development workshops.
Four of these presentations were invited
by organizations seeking to incorporate
our experience/research results in devel-
opment activities. The reconstruction
activities associated with Hurricanes
Georges and Mitch have resulted in liter-
ally hundreds of e-mail and telephone
requests for information on what we have
learned from our research. Examples of
organizations requesting information
were the USAID missions, speech-writers
for USAID, USDA, IDB senior officials,

various ministries of the governments in
the affected countries, and a host of other
development organizations (e.g.,
InterAmerican Development Bank, World
Bank, organizations sponsored by
European governments and many non-
government organizations).
It was gratifying that preliminary data
from this SM CRSP project have had a
tangible influence in shaping the dialog
and strategies of donor, lending and action
organizations engaged in reconstruction
activities following Hurricane Mitch. For
example, the USAID mission in Honduras
has used our information to support their
plan for an US$ 8 million soil and water
conservation project to begin in FY-2000.
The USAID mission and the Ministry of
Agriculture in Nicaragua have been work-
ing closely with Texas A&M University to
develop GIS tools that can help guide
reconstruction efforts. The InterAmerican
Development Bank excerpted text from
several of our documents to craft their
loan/reconstruction/transformation strate-
gy (e.g., sectoral development activities
must be coordinated-downstream invest-
ments must consider vulnerability associ-
ated with upland use patterns).
An example of the type of data gener-
ated from our ongoing research is illus-
trated by the catchment studies underway
in southern Honduras since 1993. The
two wet years (1995 & 1996) of our data
set (prior to the exceptional 1998 year in
which Hurricane Mitch occurred) aver-
aged 92 tons/ha/yr soil loss on traditional
slash and burn sites, 43 tons/ha/yr soil loss
on the mulched sites (i.e., no burning but
no investments to tie the soil into the hill-
side), 0.9 tons/ha/yr on the vetiver grass
contours sites (without the vetiver strips
this site would have been expected to lose
73 tons/ha/yr if mulched only, as deter-
mined using EPA paired plot calibration

techniques) and 0.7 tons/ha/yr on previ-
ously cropped land being reclaimed using
a nitrogen-fixing tree fallow).
Throughout the region, cropped sites
with vegetation contours, rock walls and
tree fallows withstood Hurricane Mitch
quite well, but the sites that did not have
these investments were devastated by mas-
sive landslides. Our storm intensity data
from Hurricane Mitch is the only source
of this type of information for a region
extending the southern half of Honduras
and northern Nicaragua (to be published
in the scientific journal Nature in late May
1999). GIS analysis of land use changes
since the mid-1950s, and the implications
of those changes for runoff and erosion,
provide an understanding of the magni-
tude of increased risk and vulnerability to
tropical storms like Hurricane Mitch.
Research is targeted at understanding
the various facets germane to the issues of
accounting for soil conservation costs and
benefits when analyzed at a field and
watershed scale of resolution. Examples of
some of the current research feeding into
the policy relevant analyses of land use
practices and soil and water conservation
investment options include:

- the magnitude of preservation of car-
bon sequestration on sites with soil
conservation investments,
the socioeconomic linkages between
upstream land use and downstream
environmental and economic inter-
ests,
long-term impacts of soil conserva-
tion investments on total production
and the production variation (e.g.,
risk reduction associated with produc-
tion in dry years),
refinement and validation of sustain-
able farming system options compati-
ble with the farmers economic and
social constraints,

- refinement and validation of GIS
analysis and simulation models need-
ed to estimate the overland loss of
water, soil and nutrients on represen-
tative steepland sites as influenced by
land management practices and
inherent soil characteristics.

All field research requiring multiple years
of data collection were initiated. Progress
of the project is on track or
advanced/enhanced relative to what was
outlined in the initial project proposal.
Collaborative research projects involve 22
scientists with 9 organizations in
Honduras, Haiti and Nicaragua. These
host-country professionals are academi-
cally-linked with the 6 principal investiga-
tors or lead scientists and 8 collaborating
scientists from Texas A&M University,
Auburn University and North Carolina
State University. The host country orga-
nizations provide tangible in-kind sup-
port (personnel, vehicles, etc.) for the
research projects valued at approximately
$130,000/yr. Our project also benefited
from the unique opportunities that arose
from Hurricane Mitch, especially in terms
of accessing satellite imagery and detailed
aerial photos which is very complimenta-
ry with our ongoing GIS and simulation
modeling analyses.

S Eight graduate students (2 from
Honduras, 2 from Nicaragua, 2 from Haiti
and 2 from the U.S.) were supported in
their programs during this project year.
Five of the 6 host-country students were
selected based on merit from the ranks of
collaborating host-country national orga-
nizations. These organizations use their
collaboration with the CRSP to improve
their institutional scientific capabilities
and to strengthen linkages to U.S. univer-
sities. In addition, 2 students (1 from
Bolivia and 1 from India) are conducting

research in support of the project while
being supported from sources external to
the SM CRSP (i.e., Fulbright Scholar and
TAMU Experiment Station). Two stu-
dents graduated during the first year of
this project. Therefore, a total of 12 grad-
uate students have been or are part of this
project. Partial funding for 1 undergradu-
ate thesis at the PanAmerican University,
Honduras and 3 undergraduate theses at
the National Agriculture University,
Nicaragua are provided by the SM CRSP
project to support the research of these
students which are designed to dovetail in
support of on-going research directed by
the project principal investigator and each
respective lead scientist.

Project Title: Sustainability of Post-Green
Revolution Agriculture: The
Rice-Wheat Cropping Systems
of South Asia.
Principal Investigator: John Duxbury,
Cornell University

Summary:
The Cornell program has two linked pro-
jects; one concerned with the sustainability of
the rice-wheat cropping system in the Indo-
Gangetic Plains and the second with develop-
ing food systems approaches to preventing Ca
deficiency rickets in Chakaria thanna (Cox's
Bazaar district), Bangladesh. The rice-wheat
project is a component of the core SM-CRSP
program and the rickets project is supported
by funds transferred from the Bangladesh
AID mission to Cornell via the SM-CRSP.
Activities in the rice-wheat project have been
geographically constrained to Bangladesh and
Nepal due to sanctions by the U.S. govern-
ment against the governments of both India
and Pakistan.

Constraint 1: Nutrient Deficiencies in Crops
and Soils

Activities in this area are aimed at charac-
terizing and overcoming widespread macro-
and micro-nutrient deficiencies of soils in the
rice-wheat regions of Bangladesh and Nepal.
Strategies to cope with inadequate nutrient
supply include fertilization with inorganic
and/or organic nutrient sources; development
of cultivars of crops that have nutrient effi-
ciency traits; designing cropping systems so
that nutrients can be recycled through crop
residues or (legume) green manures; and
enriching seeds with nutrients. Key results to
date are:

Diagnostic surveys of soil fertility and
results of on-farm research experiments
have shown that both macro-(N, P, K, and
S) and micro-(Zn, B, and Mo) nutrient
deficiencies are widespread in Nepal and
Bangladesh.

Screening trials in Bangladesh for P effi-
ciency in wheat have identified several
lines that appear to be more P efficient
and/or responsive to P addition than cur-
rent varieties.

B deficiency was demonstrated to be the
sole cause for the high incidence of sterili-
ty in wheat at Sipaghat, a mid-hills rice-
wheat area in Nepal. In Bangladesh, a
shading experiment to simulate foggy
days induced sterility in wheat that was
not corrected by B fertilization, indicating
that there is a strong interaction between
shading and B availability. These results
are being incorporated into plant breed-
ing programs to screen lines for resistance
to B deficiency.

Evaluation of micronutrient-enriched
wheat seed (generated by foliar applica-
tions of micronutrients) showed
improved germination and plant growth
compared to unenriched seed and farmer
seed and gave an average yield response of
0.62 t/ha (20% yield increase) on 6 of 15
farms in Dinajpur district, Bangladesh.

Micronutrient enrichment of BR-32 seed,
a newly released monsoon season rice
variety in Bangladesh that is susceptible to
Zn and Mo deficiency, gave the same yield
response (1.1 t/ha; 37%) as soil or foliar
fertilization with micronutrients. Yield
responses (0.7 and 1.4 t/ha; 25 and 50%)
to foliar fertilization of BR-32 with
micronutrients were observed in 2 of 4
on-farm trials in Dinajpur district,
Bangladesh.

Various grain and green manure legume
species exhibited different nutrient acqui-
sition/recycling capacities, and different
effects on root health and populations of
parasitic nematodes in a following rice
crop.

Constraint 2: Nutrient Deficiencies in
Humans

Rickets has been identified as a major
cause of physical disability in children of
Chakaria thanna, Cox's Bazaar district, in
southeastern Bangladesh. The underlying
cause of rickets is insufficient calcium for
proper bone formation and this is most often
caused by a lack of vitamin D which is needed
for calcium utilization. However, biochemical
analysis of blood of rickets patients indicates
that calcium deficiency itself is the cause of
rickets in Chakaria. Cornell has formed and
leads a consortium to tackle this problem
using a food systems approach to increase
dietary intake of Ca and other nutrients.

Consortium members include the USDA
Nutrition Laboratory, Ithaca NY; UNICEF
Bangladesh; SARPV (a Bangladesh NGO);
AEM (a French NGO); CIMMYT; the
Institute of Child and Mother Health, Dhaka;
Dr P. Fisher, Mayo Clinic, an expert on Ca
deficiency rickets; Dr N. Hassan, Professor of
Nutrition, University of Dhaka; and the
Memorial Christian Hospital, an American
missionary hospital in Chakaria thanna.
The consortium has developed a program
aimed at rickets prevention. Principal com-
ponents of the program are:

1. Determination of the prevalence of rick-
ets in Chakaria and other parts of
Bangladesh.

2. Determination of the efficacy of treat-
ment with Ca and benefits associated with
other nutrients that are commonly defi-
cient in the diet.

3. Analysis of the food system in Chakaria
through household surveys.

4. The design of agricultural systems to
increase the supply of Ca and other nutri-
ents.

5. The development of medical protocols
and implementation of a treatment pro-
gram for children with brachitic deformi-
ties.

The prevalence studies are being financially
supported by UNICEF, the food systems com-
ponents by the Bangladesh AID mission, and
the medical treatment of rachitic afflicted
children is not currently funded.

A prevalence survey (900 randomly selected
children from 30 villages) in Chakaria thanna
found that 8.6% of the children had clinical
symptoms of rickets. Of this group, 25% had

blood biochemistry consistent with rickets
and 10% had active rickets confirmed by radi-
ology. Among 111 "control" children selected
from the group without clinical symptoms,
20% showed biochemical evidence for rickets.
The survey showed that rickets is a major
public health problem in Chakaria thanna,
that a large fraction of the rachitic children
no longer had active rickets, and it found dis-
turbing evidence for rickets in the control
group. The prevalence survey is being
extended to other parts of Bangladesh in col-
laboration with the Bangladesh Rural
Advancement Committee (BRAC), the major
NGO in Bangladesh.
Food system activities initiated include
development of a "food system" survey
instrument and formation of a team to carry
out surveys during different cropping seasons
in Chakaria; development of a 7 acre SARPV
owned farm in Chakaria to evaluate potential
agricultural/food system interventions; and
establishment of linkages with NGO's (Helen
Keller and CARE), who have home gardening
projects in the Chakaria or Chittagong areas.
Nutrition and health of farm families in
rice-wheat areas of Bangladesh are being cou-
pled to the rickets project by using the same
food systems survey instrument. This will pro-
vide the basis for design of agricultural inter-
ventions in both projects as well as useful agri-
cultural and human nutrition contrasts
between different regions of the country that
have acid soils. A Ph.D. economics student is
developing a "rice-wheat household agricultur-
al model" that will be used to explore the
implications of household decision making on
food security, nutrition and health of the fami-
ly, and income. The "household agricultural
model" will also be used in the rickets project.
The food systems approach explicitly links
agriculture to human nutrition and health
and will provide a widely transferable model
for addressing health problems caused by
malnutrition.

Constraint 3: Soil Degradation

A. Physical. Puddling of soils destroys soil
aggregates and creates pans that can restrict
root penetration. Although puddling is gen-
erally considered beneficial for rice, the poor
soil structure that it creates interferes with the
timely establishment of wheat and often leads
to poor crop stands and growth. There is also
interest in direct seeding of rice because of
labor shortages for transplanting. To address
these constraints, a series of experiments that
compare tillage (deep, conventional, and no-
tillage), crop establishment (direct seeding
and transplanting for rice; and surface seed-
ing with no land preparation and Chinese
seed drill for wheat), and residue manage-
ment (straw removal, incorporation, and use
as a mulch) have been implemented at several
locations in Bangladesh and Nepal. Initial
results from these experiments include:

Surface seeding of wheat increased wheat
yields from 2.4 to 4.3 t/ha (80%) in the
terai of Nepal due to more timely planting.

Direct seeding of rice gave the same yields
as transplanting in the terai of Nepal
(6 t/ha) but lower yields in Bangladesh,
probably due to inappropriate N manage-
ment in the latter case.

No significant effects of deep tillage prior
to rice on rice or wheat yields have been
observed to date.

Incorporation or application of wheat
straw as a mulch increased rice yields by
0.5 and 1 t/ha (13 and 27%), respectively
in the terai of Nepal. A similar result was
obtained with straw incorporation in
northwest Bangladesh. The hypothesis
that the straw treatments increase the effi-
ciency of fertilizer N use is being evaluated.

Rice yields were reduced from 5.3 to 3.7
t/ha (30%) when soils were not puddled
following normal tillage at a mid-hills site
in Nepal, but deep tillage without pud-
dling restored rice yield to the that
obtained with puddling.

B. Biological. Solarization of soil (heating to
50C by covering with clear plastic) is being
used as a diagnostic tool to evaluate the con-
straints to crop yields caused by soil borne
pathogens. The technique is not completely
definitive for pathogens because it also alters
nutrient availability. Solarization is most
effective when carried out during the dry
summer months, i.e. prior to rice.
Of 23 studies carried out with rice, 13
showed yield increases with solarization. The
mean yield increase was 1.5 t/ha (41%). Yield
increases with wheat averaging 0.6 t/ha (17%
) were observed in 3 of 6 trials. Positive
effects of solarization on crop growth were
observed in all studies, but these did not
always translate into yield increases as crops
in solarized plots attracted considerably
greater insect pressure and were more suscep-
tible to lodging and loss of grain to rats.
A simple scoring system showed that root
health was improved by solarization and pop-
ulations of parasitic nematodes were consid-
erably reduced. Preliminary studies of the
effect of solarization on nutrient availability
showed increased availability of N and Mn.
The solarization results indicate that there
is substantial scope for increasing crop yields
through improved management of soil borne
pathogens and possibly also nutrients.

Project Title: Tradeoffs in Sustainable
Agriculture and the
Environment in the Andes:
Decision Support Systems for
Policy Makers.
Principal Investigator: John Antle, Montana
State University

Summary:
A preliminary version of The Tradeoff
Model, a decision support system for policy
makers, was completed. This software inte-
grates field-scale GIS-based soils and climate
data with the DSSAT suite of crop growth
simulation models, econometric-based eco-
nomic simulation models of land use and
management decisions, and environmental
process models (leaching, runoff and ero-
sion). The software provides the basis to
draw a statistically representative sample of
fields in a region such as a watershed, conduct
integrated analysis, and statistically aggregate
the results to a scale relevant to policy deci-
sion making. The software displays tradeoffs
between competing or complementary policy
objectives in simple two-dimensional graphs,
and shows how these tradeoffs change under
alternative policy and technology scenarios. A
long-term objective of the project is to make
this model general so that it can be applied to
analysis of tradeoffs in any agro-ecosystem. A
related long-term objective is to develop the
software and documentation for distribution
and use by analysts world-wide.
The Tradeoff Model provides the frame-
work in which the Soil Management CRSP
constraints will be assessed in this project.
Tradeoff indicators include value of crop and
livestock production, soil productivity and
water quality, and human health. Constraints
addressed in this project include reductions in
soil productivity associated with mechanical
and water erosion and soil compaction, losses
in nutrients, impacts of management prac-
tices (erosion and chemical use) on water

quality, and impacts of pesticide use on
human health. Scenarios for enhancing the
long-term sustainability of Andean produc-
tion systems include improved soil manage-
ment and conservation practices, pest man-
agement practices and IPM, improved crop
varieties (specifically, adoption of late-blight
resistant varieties), pasture management, and
farmer training to improve the safety of pesti-
cide use and farm machinery practices.
The Tradeoff Model provides a framework
in which to structure input from stakeholders,
such as farmers, research administrators, and
local and national policy makers. This infor-
mation is used to define the indicators that
are quantified as tradeoffs, and to define poli-
cy and technology scenarios to be evaluated.
The expected impact of this policy deci-
sion support tool will be realized as it is
adopted and used to support more informed
policy decisions that impact agricultural pro-
duction and related soil and natural resources.
For example, in the Andean region, wide-
spread adoption and subsequent applications
of the tools are anticipated to lead to a better
understanding by farmers and policy decision
makers of the potential long-term impacts of
current land use and management practices,
and how economic conditions and technologi-
cal innovations could favorably or adversely
impact agricultural sustainability.
Much of the research activity during this
year was related to development of data and
models to be used in the Tradeoff Model, and
to collection of data needed to parameterize
scenarios. Highlights of this work are as fol-
lows:

Farm-level survey data collection contin-
ued at the Cajamarca site in Peru. The
first year of collection of data from some
600 fields was completed. Data were com-
puterized and prepared for analysis.
Parameterization and validation of crop
and livestock (LINTUL, SUBSTOR and

pasture/milk) and environmental process
(LEACHP, WEPP) models to address the
SM-CRSP priority constraints in the
Andean region.
Adaptation of econometric production
models and the related economic simula-
tion models for linkage with spatially ref-
erenced crop, livestock, and environmen-
tal process models. Modification of eco-
nomic models to test effects of alternative
model and data structures for up-scaling
and extrapolation.
Analysis of land use history and erosion.
Data was collected from farmer inter-
views and field surveys to quantify the
effects of mechanical erosion. This work
will lead to a model describing the
process of mechanical erosion (i.e., the
mechanical displacement of soil down
slope on steeply sloped hillsides) as a
function of land management. The
downscaling methodology for soils devel-
oped for the Carchi, Ecuador, site was
applied and tested for the Cajamarca,
Peru, site. This provides field-scale soil
data for use in the bio-physical simula-
tion models.
A methodology was developed to interpo-
late climatic data from weather stations to
the field level and will be applied in
Carchi and Cajamarca sites.
Automatic weather stations were installed
in Peru.
Erosion runoff plots in Ecuador were
rehabilitated and managed.
Field experiments on response of potato
varieties to nitrogen and to late blight
were conducted in Ecuador and Peru.
Project research reports were prepared,
and presentations were made at interna-
tional scientific conferences.
A collaborative agreement was prepared
with the IPM CRSP. A successful proposal
for funding of a complementary project
by IDRC was prepared.

A 3-day project meeting for project
researchers, collaborators, and stakehold-
ers was held. Presentations from the
meeting were posted on the project's web
site.

Summary:
Global Problem Addressed. Nitrogen is an
essential element in the proteins of all plant
and animal life. Protein in crop plants is
derived, in large part, from nitrogen fertilizer
which is the most widely used production
input in agriculture. The world's farmers now
consume 80 million metric tons of nitrogen
fertilizer per year and the rate may more than
double in the next 40 years if projected glob-
al food demand is to be met. The economic
and environmental consequences of increased
use of nitrogen fertilizers are significant.
Even in well managed systems, most nitrogen
fertilizer used in agriculture is lost to the
atmosphere as potent, long-lived greenhouse
gases or become contaminants of marine and
groundwater systems. In the future, the prob-
lem will be exacerbated by the need to dra-
matically increase nitrogen fertilizer applica-
tions to enhance crop yields. With more
intense fertilizer application the relative and
total loss of nitrogen from the agricultural
system increases rapidly.
While other programs of the SM-CRSP
seek to improve the efficiency nitrogen fertil-
izer use, this program aims to increase the
farmers' acquisition of organic sources of
nitrogen through biological nitrogen fixation
(BNF). In the BNF process leguminous crops

such as beans, peas and soybeans capture
nitrogen gas from the atmosphere through a
symbiosis with a bacterium, Rhizobium and
Bradyrhizobium and convert the gaseous
nitrogen into protein for human and animal
consumption. The nitrogen and protein farm-
ers acquire through BNF is nearly cost free
and without the environmental costs associat-
ed with the production, distribution and use
of manufactured nitrogen fertilizers. BNF
accounts for more that 35 million metric tons
of the nitrogen found in the world's agricul-
tural crops.
To ensure legume crops capture the maxi-
mum amount of gaseous nitrogen, farmers
can inoculate the crop with selected, superior
strains of the bacterium. This practice has
given rise to private and public sector inocu-
lant production facilities in many countries.
Project Goal and Objectives. Our goal is
to raise farm and national income and
increase consumer access to protein in LDCs
through improved performance and increased
reliance on legume BNF technology.
The program's objectives are; 1) Improve
legume inoculant performance, 2) facilitate
production of quality inoculant products, 3)
increase market awareness for inoculant prod-
ucts, 4) increase legume yield and BNF
through crop management and, 5) improve
capacity in LDCs to implement BNF pro-
grams. Budget restrictions in project year two
limited activities to objective 1.

Summary of Project Year Two Research
Accomplishments. We developed a new liquid
inoculant formulation that improved the per-
formance of Bradyrhizobium japonicum (the
microorganism that performs the BNF
process with soybean) at 65% of the materials
cost of earlier generations and less than half
the cost of conventional products. Most con-
ventional inoculant products are based on
solid carriers composed of peat mined from
wetlands or from processed agricultural

wastes. Maintaining performance consistency
of these solid carriers is difficult without rig-
orous quality control procedures that are
beyond the reach of most LDC inoculant pro-
ducers.
Our new formulations are liquid mixtures
of commonly available chemicals. Our
approach with liquid formulations offers
inoculant producers and farmers in LDC and
developed countries several advantages that
will increase the likelihood they will adopt
and benefit from the technology. These
advantages include lower cost, ease of applica-
tion, compatibility of product with advanced
planting machines, uniform performance
between production runs, and lower capital
costs for production facility setup.
Unsolicited feedback from 14 inoculant pro-
ducers in 12 countries (including Australia,,
Austria, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Ghana,
India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the UK, and the U.S.)
indicate that our goals and progress will bene-
fit their operations. (see Table 6 of complete
annual report). Details of the research process
and results are also contained in the complete
Project Year Two Annual Report.
Transferring Research Results to Clients.
We developed a global network with the aim
to field test our products in cooperation with
inoculant producers (about half are private
sector entities), obtain their feedback on
product effectiveness, identify their future
needs and familiarize prospective end users
with the potentials of our new formulations.
We developed a two-tiered database of
inoculant producers, researchers and policy
makers with interest in the subject. The objec-
tive for the first tier is to provide technical
information on our goals, rationale and
research results. This year we communicated
our research results to 102 individuals in 36
countries.
The second, smaller database is composed
of collaborators for field evaluation of our
formulations and quality control methods.

After reading our research results several
inoculant producers asked to participate in
field evaluation. We have formed a network of
24 inoculant producers and scientists in 16
countries that are beginning to evaluate our
product against locally available products.
Countries listed include Bangladesh, China,
Honduras, India, Kenya, Nicaragua,
Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania,
Thailand, Uganda, Uruguay, Vietnam, and
Zimbabwe. We have provided each collabora-
tor with a simple protocol, standard materials,
strains, quality assurance materials and proto-
cols and technical assistance. We are conduct-
ing laboratory bioassays on their local inocu-
lant products to assess the potential of pre-
dicting inoculant performance in the field
with a simple lab procedure, providing them
with tissue analysis of test crops and feedback
on quality control analysis of local inoculant
products..
Project Impact. There is a high probability
clients will adopt some of our improved inoc-
ulant formulations and quality control tech-
nologies when they are proven effective in the
field. Some have already adopted quality con-
trol technologies; others want to adopt liquid
inoculant formulations as soon as its efficacy
in the field is demonstrated (see Table 6 of
Complete Annual Report). A U.S. inoculant
producer commented "this type of work is
important to us." A producer from India
commented Awe are working on the feasibili-
ty and market acceptance of the same (liquid
inoculants).
Although producers keep their production
and sales figures confidential, we believe,
based on the comments we received, that up
to half the world's producers are interested in
adopting liquid inoculant formulations. This
could result in application of these products
to more than 20 million hectare. Given that
improved, high quality inoculant products
can improve yield of many legume crops 50-
75% of the time, the long run impact on

There are two phenomena motivating the
University of Florida project, "Gender and
Soil Fertility in Africa." First, African women
on small rainfed farms produce up to 70-80%
of the domestic food supply in most sub-
Saharan African societies. On average, they
also provide 46% of the agricultural labor.
Second, soil fertility is the number-one natur-
al resource in Africa that is being depleted.
Soil fertility depletion on smallholder farms is
the biophysical root cause of declining per-
capita food production in Africa (Sanchez et
al. 1997). Yet women lack access to soil-
replenishment inputs such as chemical fertil-
izers and animal manure (Gladwin 1989).
This is not due to their lack of belief in chem-
ical fertilizers or a commitment to organic
farming. It is mainly due to their lack of cash
or credit to acquire both chemical fertilizers
and animal manure, and lack of knowledge,
land, and labor required by new agroforestry
and legume technologies. As a result, this pro-
ject addresses all the constraints (lack of
nitrogen, phosphorus, and water and land
degradation) that the USAID Soils CRSP (col-
laborative research support project) addresses.
Project purpose. If government's aim is to
increase food production, then it should
improve the soil fertility on fields of food
producers, who in Africa happen to be
women farmers. How to do this? The purpose
of the UF project is to answer this question.
There are problems targeting women farmers
with yield-increasing inputs of production,
given (1) women farmers' severe cash and
credit constraints; (2) recent increases in fer-
tilizer prices due to currency devaluations;

and (3) women farmers' focus on subsistence
versus cash crops. Because these problems
tend to be shared across sub-Saharan Africa,
the results of this study are also expected to
be of relevance to not only the specific study
site, but Africa in general.
In 1998/99, the UF project sought solu-
tions to these formidable problems via
research with farmers in several African coun-
tries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Senegal,
Uganda, and Zambia) working with
Ministries of Agriculture and collaborators in
international centers (CIAT, CIMMYT,
ICRAF, ICRISAT), and African universities
(Bunda College in Malawi, Makerere
University in Uganda, Awassa Agricultural
Research Center in Ethiopia, and University
of Ghana). With funding from the USAID
Soils CRSP, we monitored, tested, and com-
pared the many different ways African gov-
ernments, NGOs, PVOs, and agricultural
research/extension centers (both CGIARs and
NARs) are trying to replenish the soil fertility
on women farmers' fields devoted to their
food crops. Results from all these countries
can be seen in the research and travel reports
printed on our webpage at
www.fred.ifas.ufl.edu/CRSP. The following is
a brief summary of the highlights of those
reports.
Ethiopia. During their trip to Awassa
Research Center in Ethiopia, Clif Hiebsch and
Michael Dougherty worked on a soil fertility
needs assessment associated with the produc-
tion of enset (Ensete ventricosum) or fake
banana in southern Ethiopia. Due in part to
the success of enset-based systems, population
density in some areas is exceeding the carry-
ing capacity provided by indigenous practices.
The cause is a reduction in ruminant animals
per human capital as grazing land is plowed
for crop production. This causes a decline in
both animal food products needed to supple-
ment the low-protein content of enset, and
manure used extensively to maintain soil fer-

utility. Because women have the major role in
manuring of crop land as well as responsibili-
ty for what the family eats, they are impacted
by these changes to the enset-based system.
Malawi. Political scientist Robert Uttaro
returned to Malawi for a second trip to study
the political ramifications of the recent
democratization of Malawi (and collapse of
the Banda regime). He hypothesized that the
democratic changes should have empowered
farmers, enabling government to respond bet-
ter to farmers' needs. However, democratiza-
tion processes were accompanied by econom-
ic crises following several substantial devalua-
tions of the Kwacha (and subsequent increas-
es in fertilizer, credit, and maize prices) as the
economy was opened up to global financial
markets during Malawi's market liberalization
process. Uttaro thus found peoples' faith in
the Malawi government to be in a downward
spiral, with 92% of them believing govern-
ment was not doing all it could to help them
solve their important problems, one of which
was lack of access to chemical fertilizer.
Fertilizer use in 1997/98 was not profitable for
maize production (grown by women). Both
women and men had trouble repaying credit.
Nitrogen nutrients were not being supplied by
legumes as green manure, because women
farmers did not plant legumes like pigeon
peas to undersow them green, but to consume
them for food or feed. Nitrogen was not being
supplied by agroforestry innovations, either
because women farmers did not know about
them or lacked the land to plant them.
Indeed, the only feasible way to encourage
women to use fertilizer on food crops in 1998
was to give them credit for fertilizer for cash
crops such as burley tobacco.
Andrea Snyder showed similar results
after interviewing both FHHs and MHHs in
Malusa, Malawi, and building linear program-
ming (LP) models of household livelihood
strategies. Using information on labor, price,
yield, and caloric requirements, as well as

household composition data, she was able to
create a model of each household farm that
predicted the choice of technology the house-
hold was using at the time. Then she asked
"what-if" questions to show how an individ-
ual household might adapt to future changes,
such as the August 1998 devaluation of the
Kwacha as well as the introduction of a maize
or fertilizer "safety net"-a program for the
poor who are falling through the cracks of
Malawi's market liberalization process.
Christina Gladwin returned to Malawi in
January 1999 to look specifically at safety net
design issues. Due to recent increases in maize
and fertilizer prices, rural and urban poor
were suffering from so much hunger from
November, 1998, to March, 1999, that both
the government and donors were recognizing
the need for a safety net. However, they did
not want to design and implement formal
safety nets that would compete with and
replace the informal safety nets, adaptive
strategies, and coping mechanisms already
being successfully used by the poor to allevi-
ate hunger and poverty. Therefore, Gladwin
and colleagues Stephen Devereux of IDS
Sussex, Maxton Tsoka and Peter Mvula of the
Center for Social Research (CSR), Zomba,
designed surveys of both rural and urban
poor populations that were administered by
CSR in Zomba. Their results showed that due
to the almost-doubling of maize prices fol-
lowing the 60% devaluation of the Kwacha in
August, 1998, informal safety nets and rural-
urban linkages had broken down in both
rural and urban areas of Zomba.
Recommendations suggested an expansion of
existing safety-net programs and a new
emphasis on "PES nets" (productivity-
enhancing safety nets) which would increase
productivity as well as reduce poverty and
could be in the form of "fertilizer-for-work"
programs or "fertilizer-for-improved fallow
plots" in rural areas, and "medicines-for-com-
munity work" in urban areas.

Because fertilizer prices have increased so
much in Malawi, Paul Thangata asked
whether fertilizer can even be considered a
sustainable solution for poor farmers. In a
trip to kick off his Ph.D. research to assess
agroforestry policy and institutions in
Malawi, he took a detailed look at: MAFEP,
the Malawi Agroforestry Extension Project, a
USAID funded project to design and extend
agroforestry innovations, SADP, the
Smallholder Agribusiness Development
Program funded by USAID, and ICRAF's
Makoka Research Station in Zomba.
Mali. Agro-forester PK Nair visited
Bocary Kaya at his research sites in the
Sikasso region of southern Mali. They worked
with the Sikasso Farming System Research
Team (ESPBRN) to identify soil degradation
and recommend agroforestry approaches to
address the problem. In addition to examin-
ing ways to incorporate the soil-improving
trees and shrubs as short-rotation fallow
species in local farming systems, Kaya is con-
ducting socioeconomic investigations involv-
ing rapid rural appraisal and linear program-
ming techniques to also understand the via-
bility and adoption of the technology for both
male and female headed households.
Senegal. Amy Sullivan, aided by Rick
Rudd, examined different farming systems,
soil fertility practices, and different household
composition patterns in two neighboring
communities of different ethnic origin
(Mandinka and Fulani) in the Casamance
region of southern Senegal. She found that
neither farming system relies very heavily on
cash inputs and what little cash is produced is
controlled by male family members. Women
in both villages engage in rainfed rice
production-with no chemical fertilizer or
manure-as their primary productive contri-
bution to the household. Mandinka women,
however, tend to have more discretionary
income than Fulani women, partly due to
their market access and production of garden

vegetables for sale during the dry season.
While both women and men face constraints
of low soil fertility in both villages, the more
diverse Mandinka livelihood system is more
apt to initiate use of chemical fertilizer on rice
in the future.
Ghana. In February-March, 1999, Peter
Nkedi-Kizza and Kafui Awuma assessed fertili-
ty levels of soils in both Uganda and Ghana,
and tested the null hypothesis of no difference
in soil fertility on men's and women's fields in
several agro-ecological zones in these coun-
tries. In each agro-ecological zone in each
country, soil samples were taken from five par-
ticipating women farmers and their male
match. Soil pedons were examined for each
male-female pair of farmers. Statistical analysis
of soil fertility data is still being performed.
Uganda. In July through November 1998,
Kathleen Heldenbrand and Abe Goldman
studied the farming systems of four villages in
Mbale District, one of the three most densely
populated rural districts in Uganda.
Household landholdings are extremely small
in Mbale, both in the lower and higher alti-
tude villages and among all demographic
groups. The average farm size across the total
sample is 2.2 acres or about 0.9 hectares.
Farmers were asked to compare current agri-
cultural output for their main crops with that
10 years ago (or when they began farming if
that were more recent). The majority of farm-
ers reported substantial declines for most or
all of their main food and income crops.
Roughly four out five households reported
declines in production of the four main food
and income crops: maize, matoke, beans, and
coffee. The extent of reported declines in out-
put was dramatic: Farmers reported mean
production declines of 39% for maize, 44%
for bananas, 48% for beans, and 46% for cof-
fee in comparing current output with output
on their farms 10 years ago. If these compara-
tive estimates are even roughly accurate, the
agricultural system of this region is undergo-

ing a profound production crisis, whose
reversal is not in sight.
There has been little or no use of fertiliz-
ers in most of Uganda for the past 30 years, in
contrast to much of Kenya and (to a lesser
degree) Tanzania (FAO data). A small number
of farmers in Mbale have recently begun to
use fertilizers to address declines in soil fertili-
ty, but it seems that this trend has been arrest-
ed or reversed by sharply rising prices.
Seventy five percent of the respondents say
they never use fertilizers. Only eight farm-
ers-five women and three men-were using
fertilizers at the time of the survey. In sharp
contrast to fertilizers, hybrid maize varieties
are now widely grown in all four villages, with
almost 70% of the total sample and over 80%
of those who grew maize used some hybrid
seed. About two thirds of the respondents use
at least some animal manure, usually on plots
close to the homestead. None of the respon-
dents purchases manure, and of those who
use manure, 80% say they do not have
enough for their plots. One positive finding of
the survey is the apparent emergence of a cat-
egory of younger married households of
those under 35 in which women's traditional
roles have begun to expand and new tech-
niques are being more widely adopted. Survey
responses indicate that within this group,
women have begun to own more cash crops,
learn newer farming techniques, have greater
control over their earnings, and become more
involved in farming.
Zambia. In Eastern Zambia, Christina
Gladwin and agronomist Jennifer Scheffee
Peterson worked with Steve Franzel, Param
Mfongoya, and ICRAF scientists at Msekera
Research Station to elicit from women farm-
ers the constraints limiting their adoption of
new sesbania Sesban improved fallow systems
(IF). Together, they modeled those constraints
and criteria in decision trees, in order to pre-
dict whether or not women and men farmers
would participate in an on-farm trial of the

IF-plot technology; and given that, go on to
plant another IF plot in a following year.
Jennifer Scheffee Peterson then interviewed
120 farmers in four villages in which ICRAF
had worked to diffuse the technology. Results
show that men are twice as likely to be classi-
fied as well off as women, and well off farm-
ers tend to try IF plots-and poor farmers do
not, but more very poor women (than very
poor men) who test the technology tend to
adopt it. Factors which motivate farmers to
try IF plots include: recognition of low soil
fertility as a crop production constraint, the
high price of fertilizer and farmers' lack of
access to cash to buy it, and visual verification
of the benefits of the technology. Limiting
factors include: failure of the first IF plot,
sickness/poor health of the farmer, and the
farmer's lack of belief in the benefits of IF
plots, lack of access to seeds or seedlings, and
change in access to land. Women's lack of
knowledge about IF plots was not a constraint
in this sample due to ICRAF's intensive work
in these four villages. The UF team then
decided to join forces with World Vision and
try to extend the IF technology to 12,000
farmers in the Eastern Zambian district.

Project Management

Management Entity (ME)

The University of Hawaii is the
Management Entity for the Soil Management
CRSP and, in that capacity, receives and
administers grant funds under Grant No.
LAG-G-00-97-00002-00 from the AID
Procurement Office on behalf of the Soil
Management CRSP. The ME is responsible
for implementation of the research program
and for coordinating program activities rela-
tive to annual workplans and budgets. It is
responsible for the program and accountable
to AID for all expenditures. The ME reports
on the program and represents the SM CRSP
in negotiating with AID/Washington, in
meetings of the CRSP Council (composed of
all CRSP Directors), and related meetings
nationally and internationally.
Participating institutions in the Soil
Management CRSP include Cornell
University, Montana State University, North
Carolina State University, Texas A&M
University, University of Florida and the
NifTAL Center at the University of Hawaii.
Except for the NifTAL Center, each of the par-
ticipating institutions has entered into a suba-
greement with the Research Corporation of
the University of Hawaii (RCUH). The
RCUH is a State agency, established by the
Legislature in 1965, and is attached to the
University of Hawaii for administrative pur-
poses. The fundamental mission of RCUH is
to support the research and training pro-
grams of the University of Hawaii and to
enhance research, development, and training
generally in Hawaii.
The ME, through its subagreements with
participating institutions, hold each responsi-
ble for programs and accountable for expen-
diture of project funds. In accordance with
OMB Circular A-21, a system of reporting
cost sharing or matching of federal funds up

to 25% of non-exempt project funds from
non-Federal sources is written into each of
the subagreements.
The ME has a governance system, based
on the CRSP Guidelines established in 1985,
in place and is designed to ensure that the ME
performs in accordance with those guidelines.
The scope and level of effort are modified
annually by principal investigators from each
of the participating institutions to reflect
progress achieved toward each project objec-
tives as reported in annual progress reports
and annual workplans. The governance sys-
tem of the SM CRSP consists of (1) the Board
of Directors (BOD); (2) the Technical
Committee (TC); and (3) the External
Evaluation Panel (EEP).
A description of the composition and
governance role of each body as stated in the
CRSP Guidelines follows.

The Board of Directors (BOD)

"The Board consists of representatives
from some or all of the participating institu-
tions and may include individuals from other
organizations and host country institutions.
The AID Program Officer and the ME
Director serve as ex-officio members. The
institution, which serves as the ME, will have
a permanent member on the Board. Board
members are selected by their participating
institutions on the basis of their administra-
tive responsibilities and relevant expertise.
They should not be chosen solely to represent
their respective institutions or projects, but to
function in the objective interest of the CRSP.
The Board operates under a defined charter
to deal with policy issues, to review and pass
on plans and proposed budgets, to assess
progress, and to advise the ME on these and
other matters. While the ME institution has
the authority to make final decisions relative
to program assignments, budget allocations
and authorizations, the ME must, in the

collaborative spirit, carefully consider the
advice and guidance of the Board and other
CRSP advisory groups. Any departure from
the Board's recommendations should be justi-
fied, recorded in minutes of the meeting, and
reported in writing by the ME."
The second meeting of the Board of
Directors was held in Baltimore, Maryland in
November 1998. Also present were Dr.
Richard Frankel, chief of the Food Policy
Division in the Office of Agriculture and
Food Security and Dr. John Duxbury, princi-
pal investigator of Cornell University's project
in the SM CRSP. Members and officers of the
Board of Directors include:

Special emphasis on this year's meeting
was on the handling of buy-ins or field sup-
port funds to the University of Florida from
the Office of Disaster Relief and to Cornell
University from the USAID mission in Dhaka,
Bangladesh. The former increased the fund-
ing level of the core grant by $200,000 and
the latter by $1,000,000. Principal investiga-
tors at both institutions questioned the
administrative fees imposed by the ME.
Members of the Board concurred with actions
taken by the ME, a 16% direct cost charge.
The Board also recommended, on a case by
case basis, to negotiate that direct cost charge.
These recommendations were made after not-
ing the absence of such language in the CRSP
Guidelines (1985).
Minutes of the meeting are available by
accessing the SM CRSP web site at the follow-

ing URL, http://agrss.sherman.hawaii.edu/sm-
crsp.

The Technical Committee (TC)

"The TC is established with membership
drawn primarily from the principal scientists
engaged in CRSP activities, known as
Principal Investigators (Pi's), and host coun-
try scientists involved in CRSP or IARC activ-
ities. The ME Director and the AID Program
Officer serve as ex-officio members. The TC
meets from time to time to review work plans
and budgets, program performance, to pro-
pose modifications in the technical approach
to achieve program objectives, and to recom-
mend allocation of funds. The TC reports its
findings in writing to the ME who will share
them with the BOD."
The first meeting of the Technical
Committee was held in Irving, Texas in April
1998 followed by a second meeting in Las
Vegas, Nevada, in January 1999.
Members of the Technical Committee
include the following:

The Technical Committee reviewed and
approved workplans and budgets received by
the ME prior to the meeting date. Workplans
and budgets were not received from the
University of Florida. An extension of the
deadline for Florida was agreed upon mem-
bers present.
Once again, the task of the Committee
was constrained by the lower level of funding
provided for research efforts in PY2 and with
an anticipated lower level in PY3, these efforts
will need to be reduced correspondingly. At

issue is the non-correspondence of the project
start date with the incremental funding peri-
od, workplans and budgets are prepared
annually but the information appear to be
inconsequential as the cost of the proposed
efforts do not match up with the level of
funding provided.

The External Evaluation Panel (EEP)

"The EEP is established with membership
drawn from the scientific community to eval-
uate the status, funding progress, plans and
prospects of the CRSP and to make recom-
mendations thereon. In accordance with the
CRSP guidelines, At the panel shall consist of
an adequate number of scientists to represent
the major disciplines involved in the CRSP,
normally no more than five members. This
number will vary with program size and cost-
effectiveness. The term of office shall be
long-term to retain program memory. A five-
year term is recommended for the initial
panel and subsequently rotated off on a stag-
gered time base. Provisions should be made
for replacements for low attendance, for resig-
nations or for other reasons. In instances
where a minor discipline is not represented
on the EEP, the Chairman may request the
assistance of an external consultant from the
ME.
Panel members will be internationally rec-
ognized scientists and selected for the in-
depth knowledge of a research discipline of
the CRSP and experience in systems research
and/or research administration. International
research experience and knowledge of prob-
lems and conditions in developing countries
of some members are essential. The members
are selected so that collectively they will cover
the disciplinary range of the CRSP, including
socio-economic components that can influ-
ence research and technology adoption. Panel
members should be drawn from the United
States (some with experience in agricultural
research and knowledge of the Land Grant

University system) and the international com-
munity and should include at least one scien-
tist from a developing host country.
Availability to devote considerable time to
EEP activities is an important criterion for
membership."
Nomination of candidates was solicited by
AID from the principal investigators and the
ME. A five-member panel was appointed.
Members of the External Evaluation Panel
include the following individuals:

The first meeting of the EEP was being
planned for April or May 1999 with on-site
mid-term evaluation of project activities as
the principal topic of that initial meeting.
Panel members will be invited to attend
important meetings of the Pi's and CRSP
organizations in order to keep abreast of
progress and be familiar with problems and
issues. Evaluations should include periodic
site visits, made on a rotational basis to each
university and each participating country,
particularly to prime country sites. These vis-
its can be divided up amongst the members,
permitting at least two members to work
together on each site visit. There also should
be adequate opportunities for interaction of
the TC and Board with the EEP.
The EEP recommendations may serve as
the basis for bringing about statutory changes
in CRSPs through adjustments in projects and
other changes. In the extreme, it may be nec-
essary to change institutions. The EEP's rec-
ommendations could serve as the basis for

such changes where necessary. A decision to
take such action without the EEP's recom-
mendation would not constitute appropriate
use of the EEP. However, more often it would
be expected that the EEP would find solutions
to problems through changes in projects and
components of projects. The Board or ME
might disagree with an EEP's recommenda-
tion. In such cases, the rationale for such dis-
agreement should be stated in minutes, and a
report made by the ME to AID, justifying the
disagreement.

CRSP Council

The Director of the ME represents this
CRSP in the CRSP Council composed of
directors of 9 other CRSPs.
During project year 2, there were two
face-to-face meetings of members of the
CRSP Council. One was held in Washington,
D.C. and the second in Davis, California,
hosted by the Small Ruminant CRSP at the
University of California, Davis.

Conference calls involving all directors
and program officers from USAID were
coordinated by the chair of the CRSP
Council, Dr. John Yohe of the INTSORMIL
CRSP at the University of Nebraska. These
calls are organized to allow the CRSP to
receive first hand information from the Office
of Agriculture and Food Security of AID and
as a forum to openly discuss issues of con-
cerns to the CRSP and to AID. These calls are
2 hours in length and are generally conducted
at intervals of 2 months.
The SM CRSP participated in 2 programs
organized designed to improve the visibility
and information dissemination of the CRSP.
The first was an international symposium at
the annual meetings of the American Society
of Agronomy (Baltimore, Maryland) in
November 1998. The second was a photo-
graphic gallery presentation in the exhibition
area of the newly inaugurated Ronald Reagan
Building in Washington, D.C. The gallery was
on display for 3 months starting in October
1998.

Financial Summary

Incremental core funding of the SM CRSP
continued at a level of $2.5 million for a peri-
od of 12 months ending on April 30, 1999.
Project year 2 ended on February 10, 1999.
Incremental funding awards or modifications
to the grant do not follow any regular cycle.
There is no coincidence of the project year
with the period or dates of each modification.
Table 1 shows the relative temporal difference
between the grant award period and the incre-
mental funding period.
Funds derived from field support or AID
buyins were received in Project Year 2 and
added to core funds during this reporting
period and are reported as part of modifica-
tion no. 2 and all of modification no. 3.
Mod #2 extended the grant award period
to April 30, 1999 (into Project Year 3) and
increased cumulative grant total by $2.7 mil-
lion. Of that total, $200,000 was "earmarked"
to the University of Florida by the Office of
Disaster Relief, USAID as field support funds
(also previously referred to as buy-ins). The
base core total of $2.5 million for 12 months
represented a reduction from the level of near-
ly $360,000 or 9% from the first 15 months of
the grant. Funding for the previously month
period amounted to $3.58 million.
Mod #3, received in Project Year 3,
amounted to $1 million as field support funds

from the mission in Bangladesh. This modifi-
cation is reported here as a request to enter
into an agreement with Cornell University
and the SM CRSP was received in Project Year
2. Further, preliminary activities in anticipa-
tion of receiving funding through field sup-
port in Project Year 2.
These funds were intended only for
Cornell University in support of research
related to a link between soil fertility con-
straints and crop management with the rela-
tively high incidence of rickets among young
children in Chakaria, Bangladesh.
A complicating factor with Mod #3 was
the extension of the grant period by 3 months
to July 31, 1999 without additional funding
for the 6 core projects and the ME. Since the
award was for Cornell University only for the
added effort, that meant the remaining pro-
jects and the ME would have no additional
funds for 3 additional months. Email com-
munications and a personal visit by the ME
Director to the Procurement Office of USAID
failed to have the funding date restored to
April 30, 1999.

Field Support and CRSP
Guidelines

Further complications included the with-
holding of administrative costs by the ME on
the field support award. Without specific

mention of field support or buyins in the
CRSP Guidelines, the ME consulted with
other CRSPs that have handled similar sup-
port resulted in the ME's decision to with-
hold 16% of each award rather than a maxi-
mum allowable of 20%. The 16% figure
was derived from the percentage of the ME's
budget relative to the entire CRSP budget
submitted in its initial proposal to AID.
Through actions taken by the CRSP
Council, a communication related to
changes in the CRSP Guidelines was sub-
mitted to the BIFAD committee handling
revisions to the CRSP Guidelines.
In the absence of articles pertaining to
the administration of field support funds
and to resolve issues related to field support
awards impacting on the Soil Management
CRSP, the second meeting of the Board of
Directors focused on issues concerning the
administrative fees imposed by the ME.
The principal investigators affected, C.
Gladwin of the University of Florida and J.
Duxbury of Cornell University were invited
to participate in the 2nd meeting of the
Board of Directors in Baltimore, Maryland.
Due to teaching responsibilities,
Gladwin met with the Board Chair, the ME,
and the chair from the Soil Science
Department of the University of Florida a
day prior to the meeting of the Board mem-
bers.

Actions by the SM CRSP Board of Directors

1. The Board determined the ME met its
responsibilities in withholding direct cost
funds as administrative costs. Since the
CRSP guidelines is not specific on this
topic, the AID program officer advised the
Board that the use of a "rule-of-thumb"
20% figure for administrative costs for the
CRSPs is an acceptable level as determined
by AID. The Board concurred with the
application of a 16% figure. These costs, as
emphasized by the Board, should not be
construed as indirect costs but direct costs.

2. Further, the Board asked the ME to use its
best judgement on a case by case basis in
determining the level of administrative
costs for field support funds. And, the
Board agreed to draft a letter to the
BIFAD to address this topic in their delib-
erations on revisions to the CRSP
Guidelines (1985).

The SM CRSP provides support for both undergraduate and graduate training for academic
degrees from participating U.S. institutions. Students from countries where field activities are
on-going and the United States and selected third-country nationals fully or partially supported
by the SM CRSP. Students enrolled in academic degree programs in host-country institutions
are supported by the SM CRSP through their involvement with in-country research activities.
Undergraduate and graduate students are included in the list of students

Field support, also commonly referred to
as buyins, are resources provided by AID
either through mission or regional offices.
Leveraging refers to the ability of the project
to generate interest and support which results
in added contributions of both human and
fiscal resources to the project. Cost sharing
refers to either or both in-kind support and
wages/salaries of individuals assigned to SM
CRSP activities of participating and collabo-
rating organizations. During PY2, funding
from field support amounted to $1,231,000
and an estimated $1,208,053 from leveraging
activities and from cost sharing from develop-
ing country collaborators.

Africa

Office of Disaster Relief. Two hundred thou-
sand dollars were added to modification no. 2
of the SM CRSP grant by AID's Office of
Disaster Relief (ODR) for disbursement by
the ME to the University of Florida's Gender
and Soil Fertility project. The additional
funds allowed expansion of project activities
from Malawi to Uganda, Kenya, and Ghana.
A direct grant to the NifTAL project of
$31,000 was made by ODR in PY1 and com-
pleted in PY2. USAID provided support for
the Rhizobium Ecology Network for East and
Southern Africa at the University of Nairobi,
Kenya. The goal of this grant was to test
NifTAL's liquid inoculant formulas in E. and
S. Africa.

USAID/Dhaka (Bangladesh). A request for
field support from the AID mission in
Bangladesh was received by Cornell
University's Rice-Wheat program to under-
take research related to soil fertility and the
lack of calcium in the nutritional diet of chil-
dren and adults in the Chakaria region of
Bangladesh. Funds from the mission were
channeled through to the Office of
Agriculture and Food Security (AFS) and to
the SM CRSP. The mission provided $1 mil-
lion for disbursement to Cornell University
over a period of 2 years.

World Bank/Tamil Nadu Agricultural
University provided a research scientist to
work on quality control methods. Specifically
he developed recovery methods of bradyrhi-
zobia form peat carriers for direct enumera-
tion of viable cells by microscopy. This project
is a continuation from PYL. $23,400.

Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice).
Personnel costs in the establishment and
maintenance of core experiments, for baseline
participatory survey, maintenance/monitoring
of core and on-farm experiments. ($50,000)

PhilRice and Philippine National Soil Survey.
Personnel and laboratory support services to
classify the soil pedon from the experimental
site in Illagan. $25,000.

CGIAR

ISNAR/Ecoregional Fund. Two projects, one
in Ecuador and one in Peru, are in their sec-
ond year of a three year program. Total fund-
ing for each project was $500,000.

International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
Collaboration with IRRI resulted in signifi-
cant leverage for the NifTAL project and the
Phosphorus and Nitrogen decision support

system (PDSS and NDSS, respectively) com-
ponents of the Decision Aids project of the
SM CRSP. NifTAL cost shared approximately
15% of a research scientist position with IRRI
(the Decision Aids project provided 85% of
the support) and received a package of
research support from IRRI (lab services,
technical and logistical support, housing,
transportation, regional travel, greenhouse
and field support, post doctoral research
staff). The opportunity costs of this support
are $120,000 for the CRSP.

Americas

IDRC. A new project, "Human Health and
Changes in Potato Production Technology in
the Highland Ecuadorian Agro-Ecosystem"
was approved for funding for three years by
IDRC. This project will complement the SM
CRSP core project by making it possible to
include important new data on human health
scenarios in the analysis of pest and soil man-
agement scenarios in the Carchi study. This
activity will validate earlier scenarios on
health and pesticides, investigate accident
risks associated with mechanization, and sup-
port analysis of the adoption of IPM prac-
tices.

Ministry of Natural Resources-Land Use
Productivity Enhancement Project (LUPE),
Honduras. Provided personnel and trans-
portation to collect data at the field sites.
Provide vehicles and cost of living (room and
board per diem) for graduate students collect-
ing research on the LUPE project sites. This
in-kind contribution is a value of about
$30,000/year.

PanAmerican University (EAP) Honduras.
Costs of Hector Sierra's salary and of a vehicle
are provided through a combination of
INTSORMIL/PanAmerican University fund-
ing. This in-kind contribution is a value of
about $30,000/yr.

Honduras National Association of
Aquaculture. Provided access to data on
environmental impacts of shrimp farming

USAID Honduras Mission Liaison. Provided
great support in helping with logistics (such
as setting up meetings, helping to clear equip-
ment from port, helping to interview and
process prospective Honduras students for
graduate research) and encouraged collabora-
tion with the USAID-funded LUPE program
within the Ministry of Natural Resources.

National Agriculture University (UNA),
Nicaragua. Provided personnel and vehicles
necessary to conducting field research. This
in-kind contribution is equivalent to about
$20,000/yr.

SECID/PLUS, Haiti. Administrative and
logistical support were provided to the Soil
Management CRSP Steeplands Project by the
USAID/Haiti Mission through the South-East
Consortium for International Development
(SECID), a contractor in the Productive Land
Use Systems Project (PLUS). SECID, at no
cost to the Soil Management CRSP, handled
all financial transactions related to the opera-
tion of SM CRSP activities in Haiti including
transferring funds to Haiti, maintaining
Dollar and Gourde bank accounts in Haiti,
making all disbursements and reporting back
to Auburn University. SECID shared office
space, computers and vehicles for two techni-
cians employed with SM CRSP to supervise
research activities. In addition, faculty from
U.S. Universities travelling for SM CRSP
receive in-country support from SECID.
Value of assistance: $40,000

PADF/PLUS, Haiti. The Pan American
Development Foundation, a Grantee of the
PLUS project conducts agricultural extension
activities in the South of Haiti. They have
been instrumental in helping the Steeplands
project identify collaborating farmers in Ga-ta
and Bannate for on-farm trials. PADF also
assigned a technician to assist with follow-up
of the trials and collecting some data. Value
of assistance: $5,000.

ASSET Project, Haiti. During most of PY2,
SECID did not have its own office and was
housed with the ASSET Project of
USAID/Haiti. SECID and SM CRSP used
ASSET's phone lines, utilities, etc. Value of
assistance: $20,000

Centre de Recherche et de Documentation
Agricole (CRDA), Haiti. The research arm of
the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural
Resources and Rural Development (MARN-
DR) is our principal institutional collabora-
tor. It provides personnel and use of one
vehicle for SM CRSP activities.

J.R. Bossa @ 3/4 time:
4 technicians 1/4 time:
Use of vehicle
Total:

$11,000
$ 6,000
$ 5,000
$22,000

CRSP

IPM CRSP. An important new collaborative
arrangement was initiated during the year
with the IPM CRSP activity in Ecuador. This
collaboration will make it possible to investi-
gate the accuracy of the ex ante IPM technol-
ogy scenarios simulated in earlier work done
with the previous version of the Tradeoffs
Model. Important new data on pesticide use
and the efficacy of IPM training programs
will be collected and utilized to parameterize
scenarios for analysis in the Tradeoff Model.
Also, the Tradeoff Model will be linked with
analysis of IPM impacts being conducted by
the IPM-CRSP research team. This linkage
will facilitate the generalization of the Carchi
region's analysis to other regions of Ecuador.

INTSORMIL CRSP. Contribution: Provided
the vehicle and part of the salary of a research
associate at the PanAmerican University, we
provide operation expenses for field research
designed to test the impact of soil conserva-
tion activities on sorghum production.

Pond Dynamics CRSP. Contribution:
Provides access to their water quality lab at La
Lahosa, Honduras which we use to analyze
some aspects of water quality (e.g., TSS) and
use their freezers to store water samples for
transport to the US for water quality analysis.

Europe

Global

University of Surrey, UK. University of
Surrey provided support to work with them
to define organic matter decomposition char-
acteristics of waste materials and identify
organism with superior decomposition capa-
bility. $5000

National programs. Field experiments con-
ducted by NifTAL collaborators have oppor-
tunity costs of approximately $5000 each.
The cost sharing value received from 24 col-
laborators would be $120,000 less the $17,500
of direct financial support provided with SM
CRSP funds for a net cost share of $102,500.

Publications, Reports, and
Presentations

Information from the SM CRSP are dissemi-
nated through both the electronic and print
media. An internet site has been established
at the URL, Through this site, access is avail-
able to similar sites of participating institu-
tions of the SM CRSP and to USAID.

The following is a listing of technical publica-
tions, reports and oral/poster presentations by
participants and collaborators of the SM
CRSP. Those publications appearing in jour-
nal series publications are peer reviewed.

Research Institute for Agrobiology and Soil Fertility, Wageningen Agricultural University
Association Civil para la Investigacion y Desarrollo Forestal
Acidity Decision Support System
Agricultural and Food Security Office, USAID
Agricultural Research Service
Appropriate Technology International
Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute
Bangladesh Institute for Nuclear Agriculture
Biological Nitrogen Fixation
Board of Directors
Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee
Bangladesh Rice Research Institute
Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere
Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research
Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical
Canadian International Development Agency
Consortium for International Development
Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo
Centro Internacional de la Papa
Consortium for the Sustainable Development of the Andean Ecoregion
Centre de Recherche et de Documentation Agricoles
Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service
Center for Social Research
Cornell University
Decision Support System
External Evaluation Panel
Economic Growth and Agricultural Development
Empresa Brasilerira de Pesquisa Agropecuaria Vinculada Ao Ministerio de Agricultura
Environmental Protection Agency, U.S.
Escuela Politecnica de Chimborazo
Food and Agriculture Organization
Female Head of Household
Geographic Information System
International Agricultural Research Centers
International Board for Soils Research and Management
Indian Council of Agricultural Research
International Center for Research in Agro-Forestry
International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
Inter-American Development Bank
International Development Research Council, Canada
L'Institut d'Economie Rurale
International Fertilizer Developmental Center
Improved Fallow
International Food Policy Research Institute
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture
International Livestock Research Institute
Institute Nacionale de Investigacion Agropecuaria
Institute Nacionale de Investigaciones Agro-Pecuarias
Integrated nutrient management Decision Support System
International Sorghum and Millet CRSP
Integrated Pest Management

IRRI International Rice Research Institute
ISNAR International Service for National Agricultural Research
ISRA L'Institut Senegalais de Recherche Agricole
LDC Lesser Developed Country
LUPE Land Use Productivity Enhancement project
MAFEP Malawi Agroforestry Extension Project
ME Management Entity
MERC Middle East Research Cooperation
MHH Male Head of Household
MSU Montana State University
NARC Nepal Agricultural Research Council
NARES National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems
NARS National Agricultural Research Systems
NCSU North Carolina State University
NDSS Nitrogen Decision Support System
NERC North East Regional Center
NGO Non-Governmental Organizations
NifTAL Nitrogen Fixation of Tropical Agricultural Legumes
OMB Office of Management Budget
PADF Pan American Development Foundation
PARC Pakistan Agricultural Research Council
PAU Punjab Agricultural University, Ludihana, India
PDSS Phosphorus Decision Support System
PES nets Productivity-Enhancing Safety nets
PhilRice Philippine Rice Research Institute
PI Principal Investigator
PVO Private Voluntary Organization
PY Project Year
RCUH Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii
SADP Smallholder Agribusiness Development Program
SARPV Social Assistance and Rehabilitation for the Physically Vulnerable
SECID South-East Consortium for International Development
SM CRSP Soil Management Collaborative Research Support Program
SUBSTOR Subterranean Storage crop model
TAMU Texas A&M University
TC Technical Committee
UF University of Florida
UNA Universidad Nacional Agraria
UNC Universidad Nacional de Cajmarca
UNICEF United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund
URL Universal Resource Locator
USAID United States Agency for International Development
USDA United States Department of Agriculture
WAU Wageningen Agricultural University